


Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life

by ExpatGirl



Series: Blade Runner AU [2]
Category: Blade Runner (1982), Supernatural
Genre: Blow Jobs, Christmas, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Posthuman, yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 08:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5084485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>December 2020, somewhere along the western Canadian border</b>
  <br/>
  <i>The first Christmas, they spent on the road. They struck southward out of Los Angeles, and spent two weeks hiding near the Mexican border, before turning north and coaxing the Impala through ever-deepening snow. Occasionally, Cas had to get out and push the car considerable distances over icy blacktop. (This he did with little apparent effort, which did interesting things to Dean’s libido.) The way had opened up substantially since the last time Dean had been in this part of the country. The narrow safe zone from his memory now fanned out in many places to encompass dozens of acres of forest and field, and they had the road—the whole word, as far as they were concerned—largely to themselves. Hotels were scarce, but it hardly mattered. It was nothing to pull over on a deserted stretch of highway under the vast, open sky, climb into the back seat, and cling together under a blanket for the night.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dimtraces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/gifts), [BurningTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/gifts).



> This is a coda to _Sheep May Safely Graze_.

**December 2020, somewhere along the western Canadian border**

The first Christmas, they spent on the road. They struck southward out of Los Angeles, and spent two weeks hiding near the Mexican border, before turning north and coaxing the Impala through ever-deepening snow. Occasionally, Cas had to get out and push the car considerable distances over icy blacktop. (This he did with little apparent effort, which did interesting things to Dean’s libido.) The way had opened up substantially since the last time Dean had been in this part of the country. The narrow safe zone from his memory now fanned out in many places to encompass dozens of acres of forest and field, and they had the road—the whole word, as far as they were concerned—largely to themselves. Hotels were scarce, but it hardly mattered. It was nothing to pull over on a deserted stretch of highway under the vast, open sky, climb into the back seat, and cling together under a blanket for the night.

The blanket proved completely superfluous, Dean found out, because, for one, Cas’ body temperature never changed; he was a walking, talking space heater. For another, the instant Dean gave even a suggestion of shivering, Cas was on him, or under him, or next to him, pushing Dean’s hands under his shirt or placing them between his own.

“Cas, I’ll never get any sleep this way,” Dean groused, without any actual irritation, as Cas settled on top of him again.

“I won’t let you get hypothermia, Dean,” Cas said against the side of Dean’s neck. “However, you raise a good point. Fatigue on the road is dangerous. I certainly don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel in the morning.” Dean suddenly found himself being manhandled into a sitting position against the window. “So,” Cas continued, nudging one of Dean’s feet to the floor, “let me help you with your sleeping problem.”

“I’m gonna guess this doesn’t involve a secret stash of sleeping pills.”

“Not exactly,” Cas said, making short work of Dean’s clothes.

“God bless the inventor of the button fly,” Dean said with a gasp. He drew his knees up and open, to better accommodate Cas. He’d always considered himself the accommodating sort.

“Amen,” Cas said, hot against Dean’s skin, making him shiver. He applied his tongue in several long, slow strokes, then, somewhat maddeningly, shifted his attention to kissing Dean’s hips and inner thighs.

“Dude, how are you even managing to _get_ in that position, anyway?” Dean asked, tipping his head back against the rapidly-fogging glass. “Do you do yoga or something?” He hissed as Cas bit lightly at the sensitive spot near his hipbone. “I mean, I’ve had sex in here before, but she was like a foot shorter than you and—oh _fuck_.”

Cas evidently took exception to this turn in the conversation, for he suddenly swallowed Dean down in one determined movement. Dean dug one heel into the back of Cas’ thigh and the other into the foot well. Then he hung on for dear life. Cas had yet to perfect his technique to the degree that Dean had, but he proved to be a quick and eager learner. Dean managed to stammer out a few words of encouragement, before being rendered speechless, then silent, then gasping. He tensed up, shuddering like a plucked string, then fell back, dazed.

Cas sat up. “Now,” he said, in his normal, serious voice, wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb, “hopefully that will solve the problem. But if you’re still struggling, let me know. There are a few other things I could try.” He carefully did up Dean’s clothes, button by blessed button, and settled Dean on top of him. He drew the blanket up around them both.

“I...yeah,” Dean said, slurring a little. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The following morning was Christmas. They stumbled from the car to the sight of four blacktail deer—three does and a juvenile—wandering under the blue-washed sky. They turned their oildrop eyes toward the disturbance, but didn’t seem perturbed. Dean scarcely dared to breathe. He cut up several apples from their supply, then crouched down and threw them a few yards away. He turned, wide-eyed and grinning, to Cas as the deer began to nose curiously at his offering. But Cas wasn’t focused on them at all. He was watching Dean, with a look warm enough to melt the snow around them.

“What?” Dean asked, blushing furiously. He felt the tips of his ears go hot.

“Merry Christmas,” was all Cas said, continuing to look at him.

“Merry Christmas,” Dean said, to his boots.

“I only wish I had something to give you.”

Dean made an incredulous noise as he looked up. He gestured to the horizon and all that it contained: the distant mountains, the white glitter of the snow, the dark green border of the trees, the slowly retreating backs of the deer. “Are you kidding? This? This is perfect. LA was a fucking tomb, I just didn’t realize it. And I’m only here because of you. So.” Dean grabbed the front of Cas’ coat—the same tan overcoat he’d worn in the city, completely inappropriate for the weather—and pulled him in, resting his chin on his shoulder.

Cas dipped his head, which meant he was smiling, Dean knew. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but I detect a note of romanticism in there.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean said, turning his head slightly to kiss the corner of Cas’ jaw, “don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

****

The second Christmas, they spent in the cabin that Bobby had given them the use of, though Dean was in a much less cheerful mood. Sam was late, by almost two days. He had called a week earlier to say he wouldn’t make his original date of the 20th due to some nebulous issues to do with the university, and to expect him on the 21st instead. Cas knew, from his letters (addressed, for reasons that Dean had never made clear, to one R. Deckard), that the reopening of Stanford had been beset with problems. One of the law faculty, of which there were only three, including Sam, had been offered a job Offworld for an astronomical sum of money. He had left before the end of the first semester. Sam had to pick up the slack, leaving the running of the department largely to Jessica. Fortunately, she proved more than capable.

In the spring, the long-awaited arrival of the Shanghai collection hit a snag when only half of it was delivered. Jess had gone, at her own expense, to the Import Compound in Baltimore to see if she might negotiate their release within the next month—a ludicrous timescale, given the Kafkaesque levels of bureaucracy of that particular institution. Two weeks later, she had returned with the remainder of the collection and a refund for travel costs, which she used to buy two tickets to the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone.

But now the evening of the 23rd was falling, without any sign of Sam, and Dean had practically worn the floor to the felt paper with his pacing.

“I _told_ him to cut east and _then_ go north, instead of heading north and then east!” Dean said for the third, or fourth, or twelfth time. “Everything north of Issaquah is under six feet of snow.”

“We made it in similar conditions in a much more impractical car,” Cas pointed out, without rolling his eyes. He sat mending one of Bobby’s old quilts, having put the best ones on the bed meant for Sam. Sewing was a skill he was surprised to find he possessed, but there had been dozens of similar accidental discoveries in the past year, of varying levels of happiness. (He had only cried after one or two, and Dean, to his credit, had held him and not tried to stop him.)

“Besides, you know the telecoms are spotty up here at the best of times. As I recall,” he added, standing up and shaking out the quilt with a decisive snap, “you said that was part of the appeal.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean said. He looked morosely at the snow-covered hills glinting in the window. “I just don’t want to find out my little brother died of frostbite ten miles from my door.”

“He’d turn on the broadcast distress signal if he got into trouble.”

“Stop being reasonable and start pacing.”

“I prefer drinking to pacing, as you know.” Cas hid his smile by carefully returning the needle and thread to their box. “But if he’s not here by dawn, I’ll go out and look for him.”

“I’m not sending you out there like some kind of dog.”

“Dogs are traditionally known for their fidelity and tenacity, so I fail to see how that would reflect badly on my character.”

Dean made an irritated little noise, which meant that he was smiling, and resenting it.

“And anyway, it’s not as though I can die of exposure.”

“If you got lost…”

“I’d find my way back. It would take weeks before I was in danger of starvation.”

“Cas, no. That’s final.”

Cas raised an eyebrow. “Ultimatum is probably not the way to go if you want to stop me from doing something, Dean.”

“Heh, yeah, I forgot about that,” Dean said, smiling in earnest now. He walked to the kitchen and poured another cup of coffee, pausing to look at the makeshift Christmas ornaments that decorated their tree. “Alright,” he said at last, “If he’s not here by tomorrow morning, we’ll _both_ go into town and see if we can’t get in touch with him. But remember to wear your damn gloves this time.”

“Alright,” Cas said, feeling suitably mollified. “We can also see about getting…” The rest of his thought was lost in muffled crunch of tires on snow. “Dean, someone’s here.”

“I don’t hear anyth--”

There was the squeak of a door opening, followed by a quiet thud. Dean instantly grew tense. He crossed the cabin in two long strides to where his gun was stashed. Cas stole into the kitchen and flattened himself against the far wall, closing his fingers around the blade he had come to regard as his own: plain, beautifully balanced, and very, very sharp. He heard the quiet click of the gun being cocked.

The footsteps that approached didn’t sound particularly stealthy, but that didn’t mean anything. Any good hunter would understand the nature of his prey, and so would know the futility of trying to sneak up on Cas in this land of perfect silence.

The footsteps stopped outside the door. For a moment there was nothing, and Cas gripped the hilt of the blade tighter.

“Dean, it’s me,” Cas heard Sam say through the door. “You can put it away.” He sounded both amused and resigned.

Instantly the tension left the room. Dean disarmed and flung the door open wide. The vaguely human-shaped being at the threshold must have been Sam, though any identifying features were blotted out under layers of insulating clothing. Sam had pulled a scarf up around his nose and mouth, but his eyes were visible, familiar and friendly. Finally Cas released his knife and stepped out of the kitchen. Cas heard Dean give an undignified grunt as Sam dragged him into a hug, but Dean didn’t complain. Cas hung back awkwardly, feeling at once too big and too small for the room.

“Hello, Sam,” he said quietly, when they had let each other go.

“Hey Cas.” Sam walked over to him, then, and wrapped him in an equally breathless hug, punctuated with an affection pat to the face.

“Dude, what the hell? We thought you’d _died_ ,” Dean said, ushering Sam out of his many layers.

“I thought you were fine,” Cas said.

Dean glared at him, but Sam only smirked.

“Yeah, I, uh, took a little longer leaving California than I’d originally planned. I had to take a detour to LA first.”

“What?” Dean asked. “Why? You didn’t mention that.”

“Well, for one thing, I’ve sublet your apartment to someone.”

“Oh,” Dean said, his face and voice going flat. He disliked any reminder of being tethered to Los Angeles. “Good.”

“Yeah, Kevin Tran. You remember him? The kid who used to live in that creepy building?”

“What, the one who got half his bones broken?”

“That’s the one. He’s fine now, by the way. Mostly. It’ll probably take a few years of physio before he’s okay. And probably a few decades of therapy. But he’s finally back on his feet. I tracked him down when I heard he’d been released from the rehab place. He jumped at the chance to live somewhere else. Somewhere with decent security.”

“Good,” Dean said again, and this time he sounded genuine. “I’m glad that place can be of use to someone who isn’t an LAPD douchebag.”

“I ran into Benny, too.”

“Hey, now, that’s not...”

“Heh, no, sorry, that came out wrong," Sam said hastily. "He sends his regards, by the way. We went out for coffee.”

“Didn’t know you were such bosom buddies,” Dean remarked wryly, hanging up Sam’s scarf and hat.

“Yeah, well.” Sam shrugged. “I needed to get something from him.”

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

“Cas’ Christmas present.”

“Why would Benny have a Christmas present for me?” Cas asked slowly, looking between the two of them.

“Well, it’s not exactly a _traditional_ Christmas present,” Sam said, digging into the satchel he had brought with him and extracting a large manila folder.

Cas felt something tighten at the base of his throat, a kind of caustic, nameless feeling that caused his hands to shake. Cas had felt it a few times this past year, when someone in town had looked at him just a little too long, or when he heard noises outside the bedroom window. “What is it?”

Sam seemed to catch his mood. “Woah, woah, woah. Calm down. Don’t be afraid. It’s good news, I swear.” He handed the file to Cas with an encouraging nod and a steadying hand on the shoulder. “Merry Christmas, Cas. You’re dead.”

Cas opened the folder at last. He was confronted with the sight of his own face, looking slightly bemused, bisected by the word EXPIRED in blood red letters. The X obscured one of his eyes. Below the stamp, someone had written a date: three days ago.

“Holy shit, really?” Dean said, coming up behind him to see for himself.

“Really,” Sam said, grinning. “I told you Benny took on your case personally, didn’t I, Cas? He’s the best tracker in the department, after all. And, as per protocol, he asked me, as former chief hunter on the case…”

“Hey!” Dean exclaimed, affronted.

“...to provide any relevant info. Which I did, of course. I may or may not have forgotten one or two crucial details, but no one’s perfect, right?” He staggered back slightly when Cas hugged him again.

“Well, guys,” Dean said suddenly, “I think this calls for a celebratory drink or twelve.” He gently removed the folder from Cas’ grip and put it on the table. “I’ll let you pour, Sam.” Sam disappeared into the kitchen.

The next few words were spoken directly into Cas’ ear, barely above a whisper. “You’re a new man now,” Dean said. “Free to be anyone you like, go anywhere you like, do anything you like.”

Cas nodded, still waiting for the world to right itself under his feet. “Yes, I...yes. I’ll do that.” His sense of language seemed to have disappeared along with his sense of balance.

“I’ll have Bobby wrangle you a new ID,” Dean continued, and something in his voice finally snagged Cas’ attention, stopping his freefall. “And you can decide for yourself where you want to go.”

“Dean,” Cas said, and turned to look at him, and Dean’s eyes had taken on a closed look that Cas had never seen before. Cas suddenly felt very lost. Surely he didn’t think...he couldn’t possibly think…

“Hey, not many people get this kind of chance,” Dean said, smiling an awful smile. “So uh, you know. Yeah. I’m happy for you. Really. Where...where were you thinking of heading?”

Cas looked at him for a long moment, torn between laughing and crying. Then he grabbed him and pulled him in for a kiss. “Actually,” he said, into Dean’s shocked face, “I was thinking of heading to Stanford. You know, mortgage, job, PTA meetings. Or maybe a life of utter debauchery. I haven’t decided yet. So.” He kissed him again. “Are you coming?”

Dean thawed under his hands, sagging slightly as though the air had been knocked from him.

“Well?”

Dean smiled. “Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am a sap. I am a **sap**. How else can you explain this? How have I written a Christmas fluff coda for _Blade Runner_ of all things? I really shouldn't have written it at all; I'm supposed to be focusing on _And What Comes After_ , but this wouldn't leave me alone. So I gave in. :)
> 
> Hat-tip to [dimtraces](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces) for the title (and the subsequent Advent setting), and to [BurningTea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/burningtea/pseuds/burningtea) for continuing to talk sense (or...nonsense) into me when I want to stop writing.


End file.
